


Mother

by hauntedd



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Project Castor, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 01:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/pseuds/hauntedd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not a shit mother.  She's a desperate one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little introspection into the 'shit mother' for Mother's Day.

Virginia knows protocol. She’s the head of the project; it’s her duty to file a report. But the fuck is she going to write? She certainly can’t tell them the truth—that Helena got out and stuck a scalpel in Parsons' brain—but right now she’s got nothing else to say. They’re already one blunder away from collapse, and this certainly would do them in. She has to account for Parsons somehow, but the lies don’t come easily in the aftermath. And with Paul still in Arlington, kissing ass and lying to the Joint Chiefs, there is no one here to help finesse it. 

Shit.

“You say you love boys. But you _lie_.” 

Helena’s accusation rings in her ears, repeating itself over and over again like a record loop. She hadn’t asked for this, but she’s the one in charge. Ever since the funding was cut during the Clinton years and every member of Project Castor fell under her wing it's been her. It’d come down to either her or Abigail Jefferson, and since Virginia had a science background, she got to live.

Them’s the breaks.

And when two of the boys started to show signs, she had to act. Parsons was the third to be symptomatic, so she decided it was best to sacrifice one to keep the rest of them alive. Just like in baseball, you can deal with a couple of strikes, but the third and _you’re out_.

Hard science requires tough choices. The military demands sacrifice. Her boys need to live, and she needed a living brain to understand their disease, so Parsons’ craniotomy was necessary. Parsons was a potential key; now he’s nothing but a cadaver and she’s left wondering if any of it was worth it. 

Virginia’s fingers deftly reach for her box of Winstons and she smacks it twice against the desk before pulling one out. It’s a habit she’d picked up from her father and one she has grown quite fond of over the years—one last tie to a family and a life that she’d had to leave behind thirty years ago.

She’d never chosen the Army—not in the way that some of her colleagues have felt the need to serve. She has to still her eyes from rolling back in their sockets when she hears that line of bull. The military is more corrupt than any of them know, and she doesn’t give a shit as long as she gets paid; at the end of the day—what isn’t? But she’d only wound up here because they were the only ones hiring after graduation. 

She’d come from White Mountain and was desperate to get _out_. The problem was she didn’t have funds to pay for college, and later, medical school. So she enlisted. It was the late 60s and the war business was booming with all the shit going down in Asia.

Somehow, she’d avoided stepping foot in Vietnam—all the other medics were sent over to care for the wounded, but not her. And when she’d asked questions her commanding officer just smirked and asked her about motherhood.

_"I don’t want kids, sir."_

_"That’s why you’re perfect for the job."_

They’d given her 12 babies and a wet nurse to raise and train as soldiers—there were other women recruited, like Jefferson, who raised their own dozens, but they’re all Castor in the end. Identical DNA tends to do that. And she’d done what she could to follow her orders—given that she now handles all of them—but even back in the day, all the women had followed the script. 

_Don’t get attached. Show affection—_ but not too much affection _—you are their mother, but the military is their father and their purpose. The boys need to become identical men, disposable, lethal, and utterly forgettable._

It’d been easy to keep her distance when they were wailing little things, shitting through diapers and begging for the wet nurse’s tits. She’d held them the required amount, in some mandated bonding ritual, and given them their check-ups and immunizations, but that was that. She'd been able to go home at night and wash her hands of this when they were toddlers, back when it was all a whole lot simpler.

However, over the years she’d softened her stance. The military ordered her to be their doctor and their mother and she’d made the role fit over time. It’s hard not to care about these kids when forced to be around them all these years. And once they’d been potty trained, she was in charge—so Virginia learned their quirks. Rudy is aggressive and outlandish, but he likes to suck his thumb and craves her approval. Mark is task-oriented and a dreamer hoping for a higher purpose. Miller is always eager to please and wants prestige. Seth was—

Seth was her favorite.

Virginia isn’t supposed to have a favorite, but she’s their _mother_ in all the ways the military has made it count, and Seth was hers. Even when he got caught up in Rudy’s games she loved him and forgave him his trespasses. Virginia’d do anything for him, even cut another of her boys open to see what makes them tick.

Experimenting on Parsons had made sense at the time. Just like keeping Helena in a cell, pregnant and pissing in a bucket, makes sense. She’s too dangerous to let loose, especially after tonight, but too valuable to kill for at least the next nine months. Probably more if they have to keep the baby.

“You are a _shit_ mother.”

And maybe she is—maybe she _is_ —but Virginia will do whatever she has to for her boys, for Seth’s memory. And while Helena can hurl her accusations and her judgments—Helena’s not her daughter, but she _might_ hold the cure for her sons.

They're supposed to be forgettable. Interchangeable pieces on an intercontinental chessboard, but all she does is remember the way that Seth would blush at her when she complimented his training. The dandelions he'd picked out for her one Mothers' Day. The way Rudy's chest had heaved against her when he finally grieved over what the illness had forced him to do.

So while she may go about things like a scientist, Virginia has grown to love her boys. And she’ll make the hard choices so they have a fighting chance at survival.

She's not a shit mother. She's a desperate one.


End file.
